Hello. Let me preface this by saying that I'm a casual, non-elitist raider. In TBC, I only saw a little bit of SSC and TK even during Sunwell era, mainly because I didn't have too much time and I enjoyed playing in a casual guild with my friends.

The multi-tier raiding vs difficulty modes comes up way too much here, so I won't argue for a TBC system, although I much prefer it, and I believe that it really benefits everyone if executed correctly. But my question is, will we ever see a game like vanilla or TBC? I know people say that Rift is, but the game itself is so much less smooth than WoW that it's really hard for me to play. I would give anything to play something like that again... every week, going into Kara, feeling so accomplished when I finally saw the later bosses, even though I was near last on my server. At the time, I never even considered entering BT, and I looked at the people in T6 with awe. And that was a lot better for me than killing the last boss easily, and slowly progressing through the same thing again. Even for a casual raider, it seems so much less meaningful. To me, BT was not wasted even though only 5% ever saw it, because it sure as hell kept me loving the game, just because it existed.

Is this type of game possible with the mindset of current LFR raiders? Will this type of game be able to succeed in this day and age, or is it impossible when most gamers feel they are entitled to see all of the content that Blizzard makes? Every new MMO, I hope that it will happen again, and it never does. I have little faith in "project Titan", because it's looking to be F2P, and will probably be a casual moneymaker, knowing blizz. Is this type of raiding system, and game as a whole, ever going to happen again?

I could almost fool myself into believing that it was me who wrote that. I felt exactly like you, and was pretty much in the same situation. I remember progressing a little into SSC before it got too old, I wasn't that late on the server. Though the guild died, I rerolled to the other faction and suddenly I was on the bottom again. Did I mind it? No! When I think back to it, TBC felt like it lasted ages, in a good way. I experienced so much in it even though I never set foot in BT, Sunwell or even Mount Hyjal.

Though, I afraid I kind of fool myself to believing it has ALL to do with how the raids were set up. I preferred looking at the better geared, more so than being one of them kind of. For me, I just had the wish that "Maybe one day, I'll be the grand hero"! Now that feeling is cheapened by the fact everyone is wearing the same gear as me. Though Burning Crusade was also different cause that was the time I actually tried out a new faction, and I had tons of my real-life friends playing the game. They've disappeared long ago.

Now I kind of just wait for a game that might rival the "smoothness" I've always felt wow had. How everything seem to work together. How the world just FITS. I have always played wow like it was an adventure game, I never played it to top any leaderboards. Seems like you don't like MoP, so far I actually do. I guess that it won't last long before I am in the same boat. Though hopefully not, I love wasting my time in this game. xP

Funny that you say that, i thought people in your group of thought said SWP was one of the best raids ever, and ti had artificial gating.

Artificial gating is the only way to stop top players from consuming everything in 2 weeks. You cant design a Ragnaros Heroic all the time and Spine type of gating is probably even worse than artificial one.

TBC gave more content only to a very little amount of people (those that reached SWP). Current model gives more content to most people.

Current model is WAY, WAY better than TBC one. Its not perfect and needs improvement, but its light years ahead of TBC one.

---------- Post added 2012-10-05 at 10:46 AM ----------

That would be a huge mistake. Forcing players to do old content to get into new one IS NOT a good design. TBC tiered progression was a HUGE failure, so much it failed that it was changed IN THE VERY SAME EXPANSION.

Stop asking for the biggest failed feature EVER in the history of WoW.

but at present thats EXACTLY how mop is setup. I dont mind it much as long as they can adjust the encounters (something that was not really done in tbc) to make it easier for people to progress through them. If it was removed I wouldnt mind much as it makes it easier for everyone. the biggest failed feature ever in wow is not even close though. Go look at totc25 raiding. 4 different lock outs. URGH

I never ever said artificial gating was good, not even in BC, it's a horrible design period. However it's use doesn't invalidate peoples enjoyment of SWP nor any other instance it's used in.

Yet people in your group (maybe not you) praise the difficulty of Muru, which was killed 3 days after its gated release. Gating gave people the feeling that SWP was harder than it really was, with Muru being the perfect example (a boss that died 3 days after release being called guild breaker, we had harder bosses in Wrath and Cata being called easy content. Also, that harded content in Wrath and cata did not break any guilds THANKS to the new current model).

Originally Posted by Alyssa

The effects are the same, if you clear it in 2 weeks and wait for new content or if you wait between the gating, the people clearing it that fast will wait the same amount of time no matter what. Personally I like spine like gating, even if spine was a bit excessive, gear-check bosses are great as they give you a reason to farm a raid for enough gear to be able to overcome that roadblock.

The effect is not the same, the burnout is delayed and guilds that can play 12 hours a day dont have such a huge advantage over one that can play 3 hours a day, which is a reason why many top guilds decided to quit the race to world first (admitted by them).

Originally Posted by Alyssa

TBC raid boss count is 44 + 8 (SWP)

Cataclysm raid boss count is 32 + 3 (BH)

Even if you never reached SWP you still had more content and your progression was never reset during during the expansion, your goal was still there, the gear you acquired was still useful, quite simply there was no way to queue up and beat the current content the day it was released no matter skill level, something that is overlooked a lot in these discussions, how many of the "raiders" only did DS LFR once and then unsubdued due to having beat the expansion or just didn't go there again.

Having a goal to strive towards pushing you to be better and overcome the challenge you currently are working for makes for far better content than plowing through the same content over and over with no challenge at all.

Again, i'm not using Cata as an example of a good model, i HATED cata, but loved Wrath and i'm enjoying MoP a lot (still dont know if it will go near Wrath quality for me, but for me Wrath was simply one of the best games ever in the history of gaming).

The goal top strive making people play better is a fallacy. People have limits, not every people will play at paragon level, or somewhere even near it. People that cant reach that level quit when they try to do the content and see that its tuned to a very different skill level.

There is a reason why games have been having different skill settings for more than 20 years.

---------- Post added 2012-10-05 at 11:16 AM ----------

Originally Posted by khalltusk

but at present thats EXACTLY how mop is setup. I dont mind it much as long as they can adjust the encounters (something that was not really done in tbc) to make it easier for people to progress through them. If it was removed I wouldnt mind much as it makes it easier for everyone. the biggest failed feature ever in wow is not even close though. Go look at totc25 raiding. 4 different lock outs. URGH

No, thats not how MoP is setup. In tier progression (MoP setting right now) is different than TIERED progression. Forcing people to complete previous tier before going on is a mistake, forcing people to complete a curent raid to go into another current raid is not such a mistake.

I really hope Blizzard does nto implement tiered progression in MoP because that would be a huge mistake.

Not really, WotLK is what brought the most people in, it's also a reason why so many people came back to WoW few weeks before WotLK, because everyone wanted to see it.

Early WotLK had the highest numbers because:

a) TBC had built up huge numbers with frankly the best style of raiding - challenging, linear.
b) People were expecting another awesome expansion as we had just had TBC, which was an awesome expansion.
c) WotLK promised to finish the storyline that had sat unfinished at the end of The Frozen Throne expac for WC3.
d) Although Naxxramas was too easy, raiders were told this was just entry level and they let is slide, especially since Ulduar was so awesome.

Come ToC and ICC things are clearly starting to change, people begin to abandon WoW. We're promised Cata will go back to TBC style heroics and raids, that isn't the case, more people leave.

People who think the decline in numbers is going to be stopped by MoP are delusional.

They are not giving special rewards to everyone. I dont know why so many people are so worried about the rewards other get. This never happened in gaming before wow, people playing a game in its hard setting never worried about other people getting the same reward by playing the game in an easier setting, let alone a worse reward like people are getting now in WoW.

Why do you think it's a good thing that people get rewarded without putting the same amount of effort in and overcoming the same challenges? I mean gear is a tool used to overcome challenges, gearing players over their abilities through nerfs only helps to compound the issue with players clearing content to fast. Players that are capable of clearing normal over the course of the tiers natural lifespan without nerfs that's given heroic gear through nerfs will just clear normal faster the next tier and get stuck in heroic until the nerfs roll in again, same goes for LFR/Normal obviously so it's not just a heroic issue.

Originally Posted by Crashdummy

This entitlement people have that they should have exclusive content and gear made only for them and that other people should not even have a chance of getting is something bad for gaming and i hope it doesnt grow.

This entitlement people have that they should get the same rewards and be able to see all difficulty levels just because they pay the same is a bad thing for gaming and I hope it doesn't grow. Everyone have the same opportunity to get the same rewards without nerfs, which is all they are entitled to in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Crashdummy

I think most people would agree in not nerfing Heroic raids at least when they are current (and probably agree in not nerfing them ever). I still dont get why Blizzard insists on doing it, which numbers they are seeing to do it. Not to maintain a exclusivity in reward, but to maintain a challenge for those that seek it.

Simple, if they where to treat LFR/Normal/Heroic as true difficulty settings the content would only last about half the time due to the segmented nature of raid progression, instead Blizzard use it as content through nerfs to extend it's lifespan (effectively lying about it being difficulty settings).

a) TBC had built up huge numbers with frankly the best style of raiding - challenging, linear.
b) People were expecting another awesome expansion as we had just had TBC, which was an awesome expansion.
c) WotLK promised to finish the storyline that had sat unfinished at the end of The Frozen Throne expac for WC3.
d) Although Naxxramas was too easy, raiders were told this was just entry level and they let is slide, especially since Ulduar was so awesome.

Come ToC and ICC things are clearly starting to change, people begin to abandon WoW. We're promised Cata will go back to TBC style heroics and raids, that isn't the case, more people leave.

People who think the decline in numbers is going to be stopped by MoP are delusional.

er Cata was made JUST like TBC was. Hard raids hard heroics in the first tier. Huge amount of people dropped. Thanks for the nice fail in logic. I do agree with totc being a pile of steaming turd however.

Not even close, while you can see some similarities they still where nowhere close to the same.

Do explain aside from raid attunements and the badge gear. The difficulty in raids was far higher in the first tier than anything in ssc/tk (aside vash and kael who tactics wise are very good still). The heroics were very difficult to begin with before raid gear trivialised them (much like raid gear did in tbc to the heroics then). I'm on about a raiding POV the games were very similar upon release.

Do explain aside from raid attunements and the badge gear. The difficulty in raids was far higher in the first tier than anything in ssc/tk (aside vash and kael who tactics wise are very good still). The heroics were very difficult to begin with before raid gear trivialised them (much like raid gear did in tbc to the heroics then). I'm on about a raiding POV the games were very similar upon release.

There was less focus on having everyone to raid for starters, no attunements, no keys to enter heroics, importance of gear from normal being trivial, gear from heroics serving very little purpose, justice points not being scraped even though it's original purpose back when it was badges have been solved though other means, do I need to go on?

less focus on having everyone to raid via no attunements? thats MORE incentive to have everyone raid as the only barrier was gear. Logic fail there. Importance from gear in normal being trivial? Normal raid or normal dungeons? If its the former you're quite wrong that gear helped us out a lot when we went onto heroic, normal dungeons has been the same since heroics in wrath and tbc to an extend maybe more so. Gear from heroic dungeons was the same as it was in TBC it helped you get into raids and was nothing more than that really.

Badge gear I do agree was too easy to obtain for me at the start i was overflowing with gear, but i dont know if that affects everyone as much as it did me as I was non stop playing. So please provide a valid argument still as you've only pointed out one potential point. the rest was just drivel.

less focus on having everyone to raid via no attunements? thats MORE incentive to have everyone raid as the only barrier was gear. Logic fail there.

Sorry, perhaps that was a bit unclear, there was less focus on that in BC hence the content was better aimed at non raiding players.

Originally Posted by khalltusk

Importance from gear in normal being trivial? Normal raid or normal dungeons? If its the former you're quite wrong that gear helped us out a lot when we went onto heroic, normal dungeons has been the same since heroics in wrath and tbc to an extend maybe more so. Gear from heroic dungeons was the same as it was in TBC it helped you get into raids and was nothing more than that really.

Normal dungeon gear played a much bigger part in BC, same as heroic dungeon gear lasted you much longer than it does today due to how easy entry level raids are.

Originally Posted by khalltusk

Badge gear I do agree was too easy to obtain for me at the start i was overflowing with gear, but i dont know if that affects everyone as much as it did me as I was non stop playing. So please provide a valid argument still as you've only pointed out one potential point. the rest was just drivel.

Badges and badge gear was introduced to close the gap for new or re-rolling players to take the pressure of guilds to gear them up, also to give the non raiding player a means to gear up over time through heroics. With the introduction of a multi difficulty setting segmented raiding system badges/points was made redundant and only helped the ease of gear acquisition along, making the game shorter.

All in all the game back in BC provided more to do for the non raiding player, especially early on, while some will attribute it to inaccessibility the fact remains that it occupied peoples time better and as such created the illusion of more content if nothing else.

Why do you think it's a good thing that people get rewarded without putting the same amount of effort in and overcoming the same challenges? I mean gear is a tool used to overcome challenges, gearing players over their abilities through nerfs only helps to compound the issue with players clearing content to fast. Players that are capable of clearing normal over the course of the tiers natural lifespan without nerfs that's given heroic gear through nerfs will just clear normal faster the next tier and get stuck in heroic until the nerfs roll in again, same goes for LFR/Normal obviously so it's not just a heroic issue.

You dont get the point. It takes MORE effort for a common player to finish the Normal raid than to a Paragon level skilled player to kill heroic one.

I dont know why suddenly this is a problem. Since the 80s everyone playing in the easy difficulty of a game had the same reward than anyone playing in the hardest one. The more you could get was a different ending in the game, nothing more. People played THE DIFFICULTY THEY HAD MORE FUN WITH and no one cared about what others got or which difficulty they played with.

Nowadays somehow peolpe think they are entitled to get games and rewards made only for them, which i think its BAD for gaming because it takes the focus from the fun to the reward.

Originally Posted by Alyssa

This entitlement people have that they should get the same rewards and be able to see all difficulty levels just because they pay the same is a bad thing for gaming and I hope it doesn't grow. Everyone have the same opportunity to get the same rewards without nerfs, which is all they are entitled to in my opinion.

Its not entitlement, its what has been happening in games wince they were created. Entitlement is what nowaday people want when they ask for exclusive content for them because they are "pro".

Originally Posted by Alyssa

Simple, if they where to treat LFR/Normal/Heroic as true difficulty settings the content would only last about half the time due to the segmented nature of raid progression, instead Blizzard use it as content through nerfs to extend it's lifespan (effectively lying about it being difficulty settings).

They are difficulty setting, i'm not sure that what you say is the realr eason why they nerf it, but as i said, i dont understand Blizzard's reason to nerf Heroic raids, maybe they are seeing something we dont.

less focus on having everyone to raid via no attunements? thats MORE incentive to have everyone raid as the only barrier was gear. Logic fail there. Importance from gear in normal being trivial? Normal raid or normal dungeons? If its the former you're quite wrong that gear helped us out a lot when we went onto heroic, normal dungeons has been the same since heroics in wrath and tbc to an extend maybe more so. Gear from heroic dungeons was the same as it was in TBC it helped you get into raids and was nothing more than that really.

Badge gear I do agree was too easy to obtain for me at the start i was overflowing with gear, but i dont know if that affects everyone as much as it did me as I was non stop playing. So please provide a valid argument still as you've only pointed out one potential point. the rest was just drivel.

Might sound like a contradiction to you, but yes, the focus is less on raiding. They're reducing everything that used to be raids (difficulty, rampups, breakers, requirements) and pushing it towards generic gameplay. They're not trying to make make raids better and their rewards better, so more people want to push for it, but they made everything that got in the way of raiding go away, so even casual nitwits can now call themselves raiders.

While I love LFR as a concept, it's also the most boring experience ever. If you do things half right, you won't die. Things that would normally kill you, don't kill you. Their focus is definitely more on the generic gamer than the hardcore raider. Classic raiding was about pushing hard, harder, hardest content and leave it be hard, harder, hardest. Ulduar and ICC were two moments of spring, in bitter winter. All current content, a joke. Sure, toss a "please do HC mode first" argument at me, go ahead, it's the first time that I didn't participate (and clear).

It's not about KZ being harder than HC dungeons. If you think so, good for you, that means your guild sucked, or your pugs didn't get in line. Maybe it is because I personally rarely played (HC dungeons, not raids) with guildies (rarely being; not a full guild group), I liked pugging, expand my network as a tank, since, well, I was good. So maybe my pugs didn't get in line enough. Maybe it's all those people that declined a warrior tank for shattered halls out of fear that it would be too hard with a warrior. Maybe it's all those times I had to explain people how to play, when doing all those heroics and perhaps it's just that we cut through KZ like butter. To me, a large part of KZ was way easier than a few of the harder HC's. Old Hillsbrad, I cleared that one first with a few friends. Epic experience, because that was before we did KZ. Shattered Halls, well, I could tank that no problem in blues, but 9 mobs pounding your armor, required some real gear on you or that healer that was supporting you.l Shadow Labs, I had to kick more than my fair share of retards before people saw that they could one-shot it if they stopped to listen.

What it's actually about today, is the fact that the gearcheck (not the oh you dont have a proper ilvl one), is nearly gone. You start with x ilvls below target and you end with ilvl y, after which Blizzard makes y, x. This repeats itself until the last dungeon has been released and all content has be cleared. You used to go from y to z. And if people wanted y, they had to go through x. It's not about what the name of the dungeon was, it's about the system. They raped the system, claim success based on a statistic that they manipulated by making all dungeons lolzeasymode and somehow this proves that Cata is a great success and actually has more raiders.

Blizzards big "See, now our content is shared among many more people" hoax, is nothing other than a coverup of the fact that all the actual raiders, left a looooong time ago.

You dont get the point. It takes MORE effort for a common player to finish the Normal raid than to a Paragon level skilled player to kill heroic one.

Which is just fine, nerfs destroy that balance though.

Originally Posted by Crashdummy

I dont know why suddenly this is a problem. Since the 80s everyone playing in the easy difficulty of a game had the same reward than anyone playing in the hardest one. The more you could get was a different ending in the game, nothing more. People played THE DIFFICULTY THEY HAD MORE FUN WITH and no one cared about what others got or which difficulty they played with.

No one cares how you play or played single player games where there is no social interaction nor hierarchy, in an MMO those things matter no matter if you like it or not.

Originally Posted by Crashdummy

Nowadays somehow peolpe think they are entitled to get games and rewards made only for them, which i think its BAD for gaming because it takes the focus from the fun to the reward.

Taking the fun away from players on the top end if just fine though right? The focus is on the reward due to the reward being diminished in value, if the reward is so unimportant why is it so important that everyone is entitled to the same rewards, something you seem to suggest.

Originally Posted by Crashdummy

Its not entitlement, its what has been happening in games wince they were created. Entitlement is what nowaday people want when they ask for exclusive content for them because they are "pro".

Yet the game originally offered the "pro" players as you call them content that was rewarding, it's those people that have something taken away from them in favor of others, even Blizzard have justified it with "they pay the same".

Originally Posted by Crashdummy

They are difficulty setting, i'm not sure that what you say is the realr eason why they nerf it, but as i said, i dont understand Blizzard's reason to nerf Heroic raids, maybe they are seeing something we dont.

Really, they are not, fully nerfed DS heroic is at the same level as normal was un-nerfed same as normal was the same as LFR, the "difficutly settings" are used as content, LFT->Normal->Heroic->LFR->Normal->Heroic, if they where used as actual difficulty settings you would progress Normal->Normal or Heroic->Heroic between tiers.

No one cares how you play or played single player games where there is no social interaction nor hierarchy, in an MMO those things matter no matter if you like it or not.

Taking the fun away from players on the top end if just fine though right? The focus is on the reward due to the reward being diminished in value, if the reward is so unimportant why is it so important that everyone is entitled to the same rewards, something you seem to suggest.

Yet the game originally offered the "pro" players as you call them content that was rewarding, it's those people that have something taken away from them in favor of others, even Blizzard have justified it with "they pay the same".

Really, they are not, fully nerfed DS heroic is at the same level as normal was un-nerfed same as normal was the same as LFR, the "difficutly settings" are used as content, LFT->Normal->Heroic->LFR->Normal->Heroic, if they where used as actual difficulty settings you would progress Normal->Normal or Heroic->Heroic between tiers.

It simply is a way for Blizzard to extend the lifespan of raids.

I don't think that it can be said that pro raiders have nothing to aim for now. Heroic raids are still hard. Now it's more focused on who can get through them before date x, when they start nerfing the content. While I agree that Heroic should probably never be nerfed, there is always the option to disable the nerf yourself. Perhaps adding an achievement tag to note whether or not someone had beaten a raid unnerfed would make the difference if just standing out in a crowd is your issue?

No, you will never get another Vanilla/TBC. I like to use the analogy "New car smell".

Vanilla/TBC were the "new car smell". As the name implies, you can really only smell it in a NEW car. WoW will never be "new" to you, and thus, you will never be able to experience a "new car smell" from it. Maybe things that are like it, but never the same thing.

tl;dr: You'll never experience the same feeling you got from vanilla/TBC. Get over it.

Originally Posted by Precursor

"Fall of therzane....." ....um what? if that woman fell , god help us it will be the second cataclysm

While I agree that Heroic should probably never be nerfed, there is always the option to disable the nerf yourself.

That's not an option and it makes me sad to see Blizzard use that argument, if you ever tried to recruit for a guild you know just how important perception and rankings are, not using every advantage available is simply like shooting your self in the foot.

Originally Posted by Shinzai

Perhaps adding an achievement tag to note whether or not someone had beaten a raid unnerfed would make the difference if just standing out in a crowd is your issue?

Who looks at achievements, no really? Titles is one thing that makes you stand out but Blizzard are to weak to remove the ability to get them with nerfs, same goes with rare and unique mounts, not an issue for me having Mimiron's head but there is really no such reward to strive for now, and no, a recolored mount isn't the same thing.

I always find it interesting how many there are willing to argue that they should have access to the same rewards no matter effort/skill and that anyone wanting to keep rewards for truly hard content (no matter raids or solo content, I'm not against awesome rewards for non raiding content) are entitled elitist assholes wanting to be special snowflakes, without even considering how hypocritical they are when doing so.

---------- Post added 2012-10-05 at 04:16 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Vook

You'll never experience the same feeling you got from vanilla/TBC. Get over it.

That's not an argument against the designs used at the time and how they could function in todays WoW.

That's not an option and it makes me sad to see Blizzard use that argument, if you ever tried to recruit for a guild you know just how important perception and rankings are, not using every advantage available is simply like shooting your self in the foot.

Who looks at achievements, no really? Titles is one thing that makes you stand out but Blizzard are to weak to remove the ability to get them with nerfs, same goes with rare and unique mounts, not an issue for me having Mimiron's head but there is really no such reward to strive for now, and no, a recolored mount isn't the same thing.

I always find it interesting how many there are willing to argue that they should have access to the same rewards no matter effort/skill and that anyone wanting to keep rewards for truly hard content (no matter raids or solo content, I'm not against awesome rewards for non raiding content) are entitled elitist assholes wanting to be special snowflakes, without even considering how hypocritical they are when doing so.

So, say they implemented the following; Raider A beats Firelands Heroic, unnerfed. They get the Firelord title, in Gold. Raider B beats Firelands Heroic at 5-15% nerf, they get the Firelord title, in Silver. Raider C beats Firelands Heroic at 20-30% nerf, they get the Firelord title, in Bronze. Raider D beats Normal Firelands and gets a different title, in the standard colour. Raider E beats Firelands LFR and gets a title for doing it, but in Grey. Would that be preferable?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against showing that you've completed something some way, I've just never been that concerned as to whether other people cared about it. For example, I run around with my Undying title, just because it's always been my favourite title, I like the way "The Undying" sounds, rather than what it signifies.

er Cata was made JUST like TBC was. Hard raids hard heroics in the first tier. Huge amount of people dropped. Thanks for the nice fail in logic. I do agree with totc being a pile of steaming turd however.

Hahahaha, Cata was nothing like TBC. Nothing at all. The heroics were nowhere near as challenging, nor were there as many, nor were they as fun (anyone remember Mind Controlling mobs to steal their buffs?). Gone were the attunements with their awesome stories and where you helped each other out, even strangers sometimes. Linear progress was gone, people skipped whole tiers. Gone was the single challenging difficulty, and yes there were hard modes but so what? As someone put it earlier in the thread, you don't lose your virginity twice, and it is the same with raiding. Once you have seen the boss it's just not as fun to kill him a second time on a different difficulty.

To cap it all off a generation of entitled casuals had sprung up during WotLK to replace the raiders who were leaving, people used to easy epics and nerfed raids. No wonder there was such an outcry when the difficulty was turned up from -5 to 1.

Cata was nothing like TBC, it's a joke to compare them.

Originally Posted by Vook

No, you will never get another Vanilla/TBC. I like to use the analogy "New car smell".

Vanilla/TBC were the "new car smell". As the name implies, you can really only smell it in a NEW car. WoW will never be "new" to you, and thus, you will never be able to experience a "new car smell" from it. Maybe things that are like it, but never the same thing.

tl;dr: You'll never experience the same feeling you got from vanilla/TBC. Get over it.

There is a difference between 'new game experience' and 'enjoyable game', which you and many others are failing to grasp.

The new game experience, or new car smell as you put it, eventually wears off. It's basically the excitement of discovering the new, but once everything becomes familiar it inevitably fades way.

The enjoyably game however does not wear off as long as the game continues to add new challenges or content or has sufficient replayability. It is why games like Diablo, Warcraft, Age of Empires, and all kinds of older games still give millions of people entertainment years after they were released.

TBC was not a new game experience, it was an enjoyable game, and that's why we want games like it, why we would love nothing more than for WoW to return to those days, because we enjoyed it. Not because it was new, because while there were new zones, races, raids etc it was still the same core game, but because it was enjoyable.

TL: DR; the change in direction since TBC is slowly killing WoW, can't wait to see the fall in subs in six months time and listen to more sheep defending Blizzard til they're blue in the face.

Again, i'm saying they shouldnt nerf heroics. That doesnt mean that the model is wrong. This game model is ways better than TBC one, which is the point.

Originally Posted by Alyssa

No one cares how you play or played single player games where there is no social interaction nor hierarchy, in an MMO those things matter no matter if you like it or not.

It only matter because entitled people think they deserve to have better things than others, even when both worked and put effort in that, which leads me to the first part you replied, different people need different effort for different things..

Originally Posted by Alyssa

Taking the fun away from players on the top end if just fine though right? The focus is on the reward due to the reward being diminished in value, if the reward is so unimportant why is it so important that everyone is entitled to the same rewards, something you seem to suggest.

Fun =/= reward. Fun =/= challenge. I'm not exactly saying that everyone is entitled to the same reward, everyone IS NOT GETTING the same reward under this model. What i'm saying, is that entitled people qqing about not getting better rewards than someone else is a problem of a new generation of gamers and that the result is bad for the industry.

It used to be about having fun or not in a game, not about asking for exclusive rewards, single player or not. When i played coop games no one asked that people setting a lower difficulty setting should get worse rewards, for example.

Originally Posted by Alyssa

Yet the game originally offered the "pro" players as you call them content that was rewarding, it's those people that have something taken away from them in favor of others, even Blizzard have justified it with "they pay the same".

Yes, originally they did, and now they progressed into a better model, that needs refining, sure, but its better overall. Blizzard NEVER justified by "they pay the same". Blizzard justified because they are players that were not getting content that sattisfied them, and they deserve that content. The problem is that other people seem to have joy in a stranger NOT having content for him.

Originally Posted by Alyssa

Really, they are not, fully nerfed DS heroic is at the same level as normal was un-nerfed same as normal was the same as LFR, the "difficutly settings" are used as content, LFT->Normal->Heroic->LFR->Normal->Heroic, if they where used as actual difficulty settings you would progress Normal->Normal or Heroic->Heroic between tiers.

It simply is a way for Blizzard to extend the lifespan of raids.

Yes, they are, even if they are after nerfed. Even now you can go and play DS in its original difficulty. The thing is, many people that say they want challenging content seem to be raiding with other people that dont enjoy challenge, and therefore they dont get the chance to deactivate the buff. Its a valid concern, since its not a good answer to ask them to leave their guild to one where everyone enjoys challenge, which is why i would be ok in heroic raiding nto being nerfed (even when the nerf IS OPTIONAL) even if that means that some of your fellow raiders may not be playing with the difficulty they want, because in the end is not possible to give different challenge to people in the same raid.

---------- Post added 2012-10-05 at 02:00 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Shinzai

I don't think that it can be said that pro raiders have nothing to aim for now. Heroic raids are still hard. Now it's more focused on who can get through them before date x, when they start nerfing the content. While I agree that Heroic should probably never be nerfed, there is always the option to disable the nerf yourself. Perhaps adding an achievement tag to note whether or not someone had beaten a raid unnerfed would make the difference if just standing out in a crowd is your issue?

Heroic raids are harder than in TBC, the problem is that a lot of players dont have the skill to complete them before the nerfs come, and play in the same raid with people that dont enjoy challenge as much as them, which is why i would also agree in heroic raids not being nerfed.